Eloy crouched beside a grain sack and turned his pockets inside out. Chaff and dust drifted through the pale dawn light leaking between the storehouse’s slatted walls. Empty burlap sacks leaned against the far wall in uneven towers, each one slowly toppling into the next.

Two mana vials clinked against the burlap. The bandage on his head had bled through again, fabric stiff with dried rust. His ankle throbbed with each heartbeat.

Capital’s locked. Valen’s status still reads CAPTURED. No route. No food. Fourteen-day death mark ticking down.

He had no category for this.

Maya set her satchel on an adjacent sack and unclasped it. The ledgers came out first, edges bent from being pressed against her ribs all night, then the crumpled parchment map. She placed each item in a row.

"Two mana potions. The ledgers. A map that ends at the third checkpoint."

Her fingers stayed on the ledger’s spine a second too long before she let go. She straightened her back against the storehouse wall, ledgers clutched against her chest, and said nothing about the missing entries. Supply caches. Safe houses. Everything that had backed her name, gone.

"Yeah, so... no food, no medical supplies, and we just blew our lead on that carriage." Eloy rubbed the back of his neck. Grain dust stuck to his palm. He didn’t look at either of them.

Valen would have had a field kit. Rations. Bandages. A cigarette. He wasn’t here. The CAPTURED flag still blinked somewhere in Eloy’s skull, an amber stain he couldn’t scrub clean or run toward. Just carry it.

"The capital is closed behind us." Isolde stood near the storehouse door, weight forward on her toes, both hands flat at her sides. "Every road between here and the southern trade route is patrolled."

She hadn’t moved off her toes since the tunnel. She watched the gap beneath the wooden frame like something was about to come through it.

Maya unrolled the map across her knee. Her finger traced the noble-controlled toll roads and checkpoints, crossing territory she’d been exiled from hours ago. The trail stopped at each marked garrison.

"Orin has stationed house guards at each toll gate under the pretense of bandit suppression." Her nail tapped a cluster of noble sigils. Fresh ink. Updated within the last week. "Every official road south passes through a family checkpoint. We will be identified before we reach the second one."

Her jaw tightened, then released.

She knew some of those houses. Knew which dining halls she’d walked through, which patriarchs owed her family formal debts. She wasn’t saying which ones. Those favors had curdled. She’d spent years turning those connections into exits, and here she was counting the bricked-over ones.

"So the roads are out. What’s left that isn’t a road?" Eloy didn’t look at Maya. He looked at Isolde.

She’d known about the sewer grate before anyone else. She’d moved through the maintenance tunnels like someone who’d walked them alone, in the dark, long before any of this started.

Isolde stepped away from the door. She crouched low, pressed her finger into the dusty floor, and started drawing lines that weren’t on any modern map. Quick. Certain.

"There is a network of pre-war smuggler trails." Her finger traced junction points and elevation shifts into the grime. "They begin three kilometers south of this post, built before the Domain Generals’ road system. Used to move contraband through the foothills."

A fork. A narrow passage through terrain that looked impassable on Maya’s parchment.

"I memorized the inspection maps when I was twelve."

She didn’t say why. Didn’t need to.

"No modern supply posts. No waypoints." Maya leaned forward, comparing the dust map to her parchment. "The terrain is unstable. How long do these trails run?"

Her eyes moved between the two maps. Nothing lined up cleanly.

"Far enough to reach the foothills." Isolde’s finger rested on the last junction. She didn’t stand. Stayed crouched, weight balanced on the balls of her feet. "Long enough to starve if we do not find food on the way."

She’d known that when she started drawing.

Eloy’s HUD pinged.

A translucent window materialized in his peripheral vision. The chat erupted before he could read the system text.

[xX_leafwhisperer_Xx]: OPTIONAL SIDE QUEST LETS GO

[N00bSlay3r]: oh no

[chronobreaker]: eloy’s about to learn what grass feels like

[ SIDE OBJECTIVE: FORAGE 0/20 EDIBLE ITEMS ]

[ REWARD: +1 CONSTITUTION ]

The system’s giving me the newbie foraging tutorial. Skipped this in every run... How bad can it be to pick some herbs?

"There’s foraging spots nearby." He half-shrugged, the way he used to when skipping a cutscene he’d seen a hundred times. "Berries, herbs, whatever. We do a quick sweep, pick what we can, and we’ve got enough to push through the first stretch."

Chat needed a show. But underneath it, he genuinely thought this would be easy. The tutorial always gave you nodes right outside the starting area. Basic design. You couldn’t strand new players before they’d learned the mechanic.

Eloy activated Deviation Sense, intending to highlight forage points on the minimap. The ability triggered. Green lines flickered into existence, stuttered.

The minimap emptied.

[ WARNING: NO EDIBLE NODES DETECTED WITHIN 1 KM ]

[ FORAGE SPAWN RATE: ATROCIOUS ]

No. That can’t be right. The tutorial zone always has nodes right outside the starting area. That’s basic game design!

[IsoldeSimp47]: no nodes????

[TrollKing99]: bro the forage spawn rate is ATROCIOUS

[LMAO_cat]: the game said "tutorial’s over, die"

[nightshade_runs]: speedrunner tries to touch grass, grass nerfed

[DeadPixel_404]: this is what happens when you skip the foraging tutorial every run

[dudefromfloripa]: he’s never picked a single herb in his LIFE

"Uh." Eloy pinched the bridge of his nose. The ease was gone. "The spots are farther out. A lot farther."

He’d almost said minimap. Almost let the word out where Isolde and Maya could hear it. Caught it just in time.

The HUD rebooted with a new overlay. The golden quest diamond toward the Sanctum erased itself from the minimap. Scattered leaf icons blinked into view, each tagged with a distance that made his stomach drop.

[ SURVIVAL MODE ACTIVE ]

[ TIMER: 13 DAYS 22 HOURS 14 MINUTES ]

[ FORAGE 0/20 ]

"How far?"

Isolde hadn’t moved.

"Hours." Eloy said it to the minimap, not to her. "The nearest one is probably three hours southeast."

"The math hasn’t changed. We walk." Maya rolled up the parchment with a snap of her wrist.

She was already running starvation timelines. Ledgers back under her arm, map secured, nothing loose.

Eloy stared at the minimap. The leaf icons pulsed at distances measured in hours of walking on an ankle that screamed. The golden diamond was gone. The capital was locked. Valen was still a CAPTURED flag he couldn’t touch from here.

The world had just traded his speedrun for a grind mechanic he’d never bothered to learn.

"Fine."

He let his hand drop from his face. Didn’t look up.

"We grind."

The HUD minimap filled with scattered leaf icons, each blinking at a distance of hours. The golden quest diamond was gone. In the bottom-right corner, a timer counted down from 13 days, 22 hours, 13 minutes.